🕊️WEB · Isaiah 40:2
What does Isaiah 40:2 mean?
"“Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”"
— Isaiah 40:2 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.
“Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”
The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.
Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”
Explanation
Isaiah 40:2 records a divine command to speak tenderly to Jerusalem, announcing three things: her time of hardship and warfare is over, her guilt has been forgiven, and she has received from the Lord's hand full payment for her sins. The plain sense of the verse is one of release and comfort after a long period of suffering — a herald is told to proclaim good news to a weary, punished city that her punishment has run its course and pardon has come.
This verse opens the second major section of Isaiah (chapters 40–66), often called the "Book of Comfort." The earlier chapters of Isaiah pronounce judgment on Judah and Jerusalem for covenant unfaithfulness, warning of coming exile at the hands of Babylon. By chapter 40, the tone shifts dramatically. Whether one attributes this section to Isaiah himself speaking prophetically ahead of the exile, or reads it as addressed most directly to the generation living through or after the Babylonian captivity, the message is the same: God's people have endured real judgment for real sin, and now God commands his prophets to announce that the judgment is finished and restoration is beginning. The command "speak comfortably" (or "speak tenderly," as other translations render it) is addressed to messengers — prophets, priests, or heavenly voices — who are to bring this word directly to the exhausted city.
Theologically, the verse holds together two things that can seem in tension: God's justice and God's mercy. Jerusalem's suffering was not arbitrary; it was the consequence of her sins, and
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